Customer Reviews

Boundaries and Passages: Rule and Ritual in Yup'ik Eskimo Oral Tradition (Civilization of the American Indian Series)

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"Boundaries and Passages" is one of the better anthropological texts on Arctic peoples to be found, Fienup-Riordan's text engages Yup'ik culture through context of ritual and shared space.

Detailed and often more of a documentary than an analysis, this text arms the anthropologist and/or interested reader with the context to form their own evaluations and conclusions.

The Yup'ik world is one formed by passages between the natural, spiritual, and human worlds. These passages are bounded, transgressed, and set right by rituals and practices that unite community...in effect creating Yup'ik identity in context of the outside world.

As well, Fienup-Riordan's text is a modern one, and she is clearly capable of acknowledging the changing spheres of influence that constantly create and recreate Yup'ik culture. Nowhere is the staid analysis of the Yup'ik as a dying culture, as a dead culture, as a static culture. Fienup-Riordan's book is a window into the living culture as well as the historical perspective.

An excellent text!